News

Dear friends, donors, supporters, volunteers, partners, readers, DANUM subscribers, all fellows who stand for justice and humanity around the world.

We are delighted to send you the warmest regard of Happy New Year 2018 from the heart of Borneo island!

A year has ended. Another year is coming. We are so glad that 2017 has been an amazing year for Ranu Welum. Together we have been doing great things to bring the voice of Dayak community to the world, speak for justice on indigenous people’s rights and also act to protect the forest of Kalimantan and preserve the culture. As we are entering a new season, we are happy to present you the seven highlights of 2017!

1. Filmmaking Community: Media Mentoring Program

Earlier in 2017, we had filmmaking mentoring program whose objective to give media skill training for young indigenous people in Kalimantan. It is our commitment to support and empower local people especially youth to reach their potential and use it as the tool to voice themselves to the world. By training new filmmakers, we believe this would be one effective way in this digital era to advocate the issue as well to educate people. Filmmaking mentoring program was running for two months (March-April) and successfully help 20 youth to produce three short films and three videos about Dayak wisdom and culture.

You can watch all videos and short films by these indigenous youth in Ranu Welum Youtube channel. Subscribe please! :)

2. Haze Shelter Set Up

After one year preparation, haze shelter set up is finally finished in June 2017. The shelter, invented and funded by our dear friend and partner Wally Tham from Big Red Button Singapore, consists of two floors concrete building which designed with two stages filter. This building is located in the Palangka Raya city and can have 60 children or 40 adults inside. Beside this shelter, Wally also developed another alternative shelter for rural areas, especially wooden houses in the villages. This shelter called ‘nest’, is made from the sustainable material (rattan) and more simple yet effective to protect a family safe from toxic haze exposure. In addition, our shelter is the first shelter in Indonesia which is used as a pilot to the solution of haze impact.

3. Global Landscape Forum: Peatland Matter

Ranu Welum also took part in an international peatland forum where the founder, Emmanuela Shinta, was invited to be a speaker. Speaking in two sections, Emmanuela Shinta spoke boldly the voice from the ground and addressed the indigenous people perspective on the policies of peatland management, forest fire prevention, and health protection. This event attended by more than 400 people from policymakers, activists, experts, and media, — as well as over 1,000 views of the event live stream and more than 9,000,000 people reached through Twitter.

Click here to watch event highlight, here to watch the main plenary CommunityPerspectiveand Priorities in Peatland, and here to watch Youth and Peatlands: Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of the International Forestry Students Association.

4. Youth Act Campaign in Haze Hacks!

Partnering with UNICEF, Big Red Button, Kopernik and Pulse Lab Jakarta, Youth Act Campaign involved in the project called Haze Hacks. This project was meant to create grass root solution for haze impact. The activities were field testing, co-design workshop and meeting with stakeholders and government.

If in 2016 we visited 17 schools, universities and communities and reached 2,370 students to give education and information about forest fire and haze, in 2017 we had more meetings with government institutions. Partnership with UNICEF opened the door for our youth volunteers to talk to local government about YA. We had 8 meetings with local government including health department, forestry and environment department, Palangka Raya city Unit, disaster management unit and police officers. We also had several visit to communities and schools and reached around 500 students.

Click here for video from our recent collaboration with UNICEF and partners.

5. The Celebration of World Indigenous People Day: The Guardians of the Forest

On 19th August we collaborated with local communities and young people in the city to hold a celebration of World Indigenous People Day. The celebration had two sections. First was a thematic seminar about forest fire and haze which was attended by 72 students, teachers and stakeholders. We worked with CIMTROP (Center for International Cooperation in Sustainable Management of Tropical Peatland), Pramuka and Muhammadiyah Center on the workshop. The second part was an outdoor cultural celebration in the evening where we had a grand screening of films made by Dayak youth indigenous filmmakers and also various Dayak cultural performances. This event was attended by more than 600 people. In this celebration, we also had a declaration on UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People) read by youth leaders of the Dayak community and launched our partnership with U-Report Indonesia for indigenous people issue. Click here to watch the glimpse of the celebration (Bahasa only).

6. Journey to the Heart of Borneo; Reconnecting & Live-in Experience

We also conducted two trips to two regions in the heart of Borneo; Katingan Hulu and East Barito. This program was meant to reconnect young people with nature and culture while giving live-in experience among Dayak communities. It included journalism activities and interview for storytelling video where our team digged the stories of humanity and culture. We also had 3 friends from US joining the trip.

First was a trip to Tumbang Habangoi, a village which is still so green and people’s lives strongly depend on the forest resources. While there, the team experienced how it felt living in the jungle. Second was a trip to Murutuwu village, located in Maanyan country, a Dayak tribe which still practice the original ritual and ceremonies. In this village the team joined the death ceremony Ijame, which is the highest ceremony in Dayak Maanyan tradition.

7. Publication

Including an article about our organization and campaign that was featured in White Paper Woman and Climate, published by UNICEF France under UNICEF Global. Click here to get your copy.

We really cannot do these all without you! Thank you for love and supports that have been poured out on the efforts to protect the forest of Borneo, preserve the Dayak culture, fight the violation against indigenous people’s rights and to empower young people in Kalimantan. We would love to continue the journey in this year 2018 with you standing by our sides. Small things matter. Please do share our message and voice to the world.

Four days are left before we celebrate Indigenous Day. Indigenous People Day is observed on August 9th each year to promote and protect the rights of the world's indigenous population. This event also recognizes the achievements and contributions that indigenous people make to improve world issues such as environmental protection. Behind this celebration day, there is history of the resistance of the rights of indigenous people. And in this moment is also the time for us to speak up for Indigenous people on August 19th 2017.

The International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples was first pronounced by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1994, to be celebrated every year during the first International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995–2004). In 2004, the Assembly proclaimed a Second International Decade, from 2005–2015, with the theme of "A Decade for Action and Dignity". People from different nations are encouraged to participate in observing the day to spread the UN's message on indigenous peoples. Activities may include educational forums and classroom activities to gain an appreciation and a better understanding of indigenous peoples. By resolution 49/214 of December 23rd 1994, the United Nations General Assembly decided that the International Day of the World's Indigenous People shall be observed on August 9th every year during the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People. The date marks the day of the first meeting, in 1982, of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations of the Sub commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

In this celebration, Indigenous people speak their rights. The rights are: get full enjoyment, free of discrimination, self-determination, land owner, citizenship (a nationality), liberty, preserving culture, tradition, and history, free to have an indigenous community or nation, get the dignity, and also have the same right as usual human.

Ranu Welum Media collaborates with young Dayak people and many organizations and communities to celebrate Indigenous Day happen. It will hold on August 19th 2017 at Bundaran Besar, Palangka Raya. In this celebration, young Dayak people will speak up the rights of indigenous people. It will screen many films those are created by young Dayak people, and it will also perform traditional dance and sing traditional song.

Quiet, still, covered by the haze: this was the situation in Palangka Raya and other regions in Central Kalimantan during the forest fires of 2015. As the yellowish smoke filled the air, thousands of people were hospitalized, babies and elders affected, pregnant women miscarried, babies which were born at that time weighing below average, the airport closed for weeks and other transportations nearly paralyzed while thousands of hectares of forest and field burned, including local rubber fields.

This forest fire and haze brought people, communities and organizations to work together in an effort to find a solution to end the fire and tackle the haze effect.

With this same purpose, on the 10 – 17 of July 2017 Ranu Welum collaborated with UNICEF (project coordinator) and various other organizations to develop haze hacks. This collaboration started when Emmanuela Shinta was involved as the speaker in Global Landscape Forum: Peatlands Matter, a forum which networked Ranu Welum Foundation with organizations like UNICEF, CIFOR and Pulse Lab Jakarta. These meetings created further connections with Kopernik of Jakarta and Big Red Button of Singapore, who also joined in the collaboration.

The purpose of this collaboration was to test prototypes and develop new strategies for protecting the population against the health impacts of haze and offer some potential solutions to the local government of Central Kalimantan.

Pulse Lab Jakarta facilitated a co-design workshop in an effort to dig local ideas about haze hacks from the young people in Palangka Raya, including university students, high school students and volunteers. The results were taken to Jakarta for further study.

Kopernik tested existing prototypes for creating a safe room that can reduce indoor air pollution during haze periods. The test involved simulating a polluted room with a controlled fire source, and then measuring air quality to see if the air purifier could reduce the air pollution to normal levels. Air pollution was tested through a particulate matter meter. These tests were conducted in two different house types; a beton/cement house in Palangka Raya and a wooden house in Petuk Katimpun Village. The tests utilized BMKG portable air quality measurements to calculate the effectivity of the air purifier to clean the air.

Big Red Button used the Ranu Welum haze shelter as a testing space for their newest invention, the Haze Nest. The purpose of The Nest is to provide a haze shelter for people in the villages who cannot seal up their wooden houses or have access to materials for air purification. The Nest is constructed of rattan, an easily accessible local material, and instead of spending the money and effort to tape and seal the ventilations and gaps in the wooden houses, a small shelter can be created within the house, which reduces the space required for air ventilation and sealing.

The results from the co-design workshops, testing and prototype design were presented to the government, experts and service heads in a debrief meeting on July 17. The meeting was held in the Bappeda meeting room and attended by departments of the local government including BMKG, BPBD, BLH/LHK, the Health Department and the Fire Fighter Department. Attending organizations included USAID Lestari, UNOPS, Borneo Nature Foundation, along with various other researchers, educators, volunteers and related parties.

This collaboration brought organizations from across Indonesia and around the world to work together in an effort to prevent forest fire and tackle the health impacts of haze. The results from the co-design workshop and field tests in the houses show positive changes and strategy development, and encourage future collaboration between organizations, communities and the government to solve this issue.

With delightful heart, I inform you that the story from the ground of Central Kalimantan about a young activist, Emmanuela Dewi Shinta who stands for the rights of her people, Dayak indigenous, her story mostly highlight the situation in Central Kalimantan during the forest fire and haze in 2015 was published.

This is the folk tale told about two young men and a young girl ( her name is Kariau Bawin Pantung). The two young men are an orphan and they are working hard for their lives. This story teaches us about how to thank God for all the things that has given to us without asking more and do not cutting down the trees easly.

Coming soon March 7th 2017 ! The full trailer "Finding The Warrior Within A Dance Odyssey" film on youtube. A French millennial looking for a life changing experience and where he decides to learn a tribal dayak dance. BBC Indonesia also is doing a radio story about this film on Friday morning at 7 a.m. A very great and powerful film, it's strong and deep !